Food Chain: Meet the Hunters
The so party that was being held by the gathered competitors wasn't some mere social gathering, it was a wild and crazy rave fest. All around us we could see spliced competitors having the time of their lives, knowing that this may be their very last chance to live it up. The music was booming, the bodies were writhing, and the cheers were roaring. There was also quite a few people in the crowd who were engaging in public sex. I could understand why, everybody was naked and super charged from the atmosphere."I've never been to a rave before, but I'm wishing I had right now!" I said, having to shout so the rest of the group could hear me. Kimberlee was trying to cover her ears as best she could, but was having trouble with her new hands, and the shape of her new ears.Heather was clearly enjoying the party and was already bouncing around, whipping her arms above her and bobbing her head in rythm to the music. Rebecca was trying to help Kimberlee adjust to the rush of sounds and smells on her new senses. I think all of us were being a little overwhelmed by them, but Kimberlee was clearly more vulnerable to it, she likely hadn't cut loose very often in her life.
Adrian had barely taken three steps before he was approached a couple who seemed very interested in him."Ooh, an otter!" said one of the pair, a female who had been turned into a silver colored fox, her companion was regular orange colored fox spotted fur and appeared to be male."You guys wouldn't happen to be furries, would you?" the todd asked, "We've got a group collected over there." He pointed off to one of the nearby corners of the room to reveal a sizeable collection of players had been assimilated, about 10 in all, not counting these two."I'm one." I said, approaching them as they looked at me smiling, "Though I expected a lot more of us to be here." I added. The vixen nodded before explaining."Oh there's deffinitely more of them around here, but there's about 500 people in this room and it would be too hard to locate them." she said, "Besides, most furries just buy their splicing off the market. Its a lot more expensive, but you don't have to take part in a blood sport to pay it off." she explained. That made sense to me, plus you knew what kind of species you were picking at the time.
"Me and Heather are also furries." Adrian said, "the others are just here for the show." I looked to him in surprise, neither of us had revealed our affiliation with the furry community during the whole trip here. It was nice to know I wasn't the only member of the group.To be honest, maybe paying the bills wasn't the only reason I had decided to join up, and maybe it wasn't the only reason this was my favorite blood sport. As a furry, I liked the concept of anthropomorphic animals. So when there was a show on television dedicated to
such creatures that was completely uncensored and full of sex and violence, maybe I developed a cult following to it."We're planning to start a tribe to help our chances. We're trying to gather as many people as we can." said the orange fox, "People who would feel comfortable with us, that is." he added, looking us over. "By the way, my name is Michael, and this is Sara." he finally introduced the two of them."We're siblings." Heather said, "Lucky for us the machine just happened to pick foxes for both of us. The supervisor said the machine has only picked the same species twice in a row 4 times in the entire series!" she explained with a smile.
"I'm interested." I said, Adrian agreeing with me a moment later, "Hold on, I'll get Heather and see if she wants to hear about this." I said, leaving the group for a moment as I went to fetch our rat.Heather was still partying it up, but thankfully she was close by. The crowd of people had been too thick for her to wander off very far. When I approached her, she turned her attention to me, as if expecting me."What's up?" She shouted over the music and cheers, pausing from her dancing to find out why I had come over to her. I was surprised she wasn't out of breath from all the jumping grinding, and thrashing she had been doing, but perhaps that was an effect of the modifications."See those foxes over there?" I shouted, pointing through the crowd as she turned to look at the pair, "They're recruiting for a furry tribe!" I said. "You interested in hearing what they have to say?" I asked. She looked at them for a moment before shrugging."Sure, why the hell not?" she asked before we made our way back to Adrian and the siblings. As we did so, I noticed Jake was nowhere around. He had apparently left the group and wandered further into the crowd. Still the idea of losing something that huge without noticing it leave was hard to wrap my head around.
Kimberlee seemed to be getting adjusted to the blast of sounds. She at least wasn't holding her ears anymore, though she still flinched every time the music spiked in volume. Rebecca stayed beside her, though, just in case she had any relapses.When we got back to the group, I introduced Heather, along with my own name, and Adrian gave his. We then followed Michael and Sara over to the large group they had formed in a corner booth. I noticed most of them kept their eyes on us, eager to see who the foxes had brought to them next.I began to look over all the species they had assimilated, and as far as I could tell, they had a fairly good arrangement up. There were, in fact, 10 of them gathered, half were sitting but the other were standing close by in case they needed to discuss anything.I counted among them a female Humming Bird, a female Golden
Retriever, a male Koi Fish, a female Bee, a male Panda, a female Beaver, a male Church Mouse, a female Ferret, a male Zebra, and a female Sloth."Look who we got!" Sara declared proudly, showing the three of us off like we were prize winning animals. The others now had their full attention on us, looking us over as if to gauge our potential.
"An otter, always popular in our community." said Michael, "As well as a cat and a rat." he added, though his tone sounded more like we were just extra additions to the group than people of interest."Welcome, I trust you're interested in what we have to say?" asked the Zebra. Judging by how he was sitting in the middle of the whole group, I guessed he was probably one of the leaders, if not the one in charge."A furry tribe, right?" I asked, prompting him to nod, "So this may be pretty obvious, but what exactly do you guys tolerate in your tribe?" I asked. I think by my mischievous grin, he knew what I wanted, and had no hesitation replying."Yes, there will be plenty of yiffing involved." he answered, getting a laugh or a giggle out of some of the other group members, "But remember where we are and what we're doing. Our goal is to survive, not end up like that sex cult back in season 2." he added. "I'm Hector, and these are-" he began to introduce the group, but before he could so so, he was cut off.The music stopped abruptly, causing the partying contestants to gradually come to their senses and quiet down as the lights from the rest of the room dimmed, and a bright pair of spot lights appeared shined on a stage at the far end. Video monitors appeared from out of the walls and ceiling in case you couldn't see the stage. At first it was empty, but soon the hosts of the show, the Primal siblings walked out from behind a curtain with a welcoming cheer to their players.
"Welcome to Food Chain, everyone!" shouted Vincent, "Just moments ago, our fifth Hunter was chosen, so now we can start this game properly!" he sounded very excited to get things underway and took a step to the side as his sister motioned to the curtain."Our first Hunter of the season is a lovely girl who will be going by the code name of Avalanche!" she said, and moments later another figure emerged from the curtain. It looked to be an anthropomorphic polar bear, but it was far larger than any other contestant I had seen. Even Jake the gorilla paled in comparison!Avalanche, as she was called, stood at a towering 11 feet tall, and weighed in at 450 lbs of muscle. How did I know this from all the way in the crowds? Because the monitor screen had a read out of their statistics. Her strength levels were at the maximum the charts would allow, and her durability was close to the same, but fortunately her speed had taken a plunge to compensate for her heavy frame. It only filled up about 30%
of the bar.I recognized her role, she was what the fans called a Juggernaut. In fact, each one of the Hunters had their own special nickname for what they specialized in. Juggernauts were all about raw, physical power. Brute strength and resilience, and focusing on little else. If anyone managed to get in close to her, they were dead within seconds, but if they could keep their distance, her slow movement would be a liability.
"Our next Hunter is a male who goes by the code name of Swamps." she introduced the next member who came leaping out of the curtain. With a name like that, I had expected an alligator, but was pleasantly surprised to find it was a gigantic, anthropomorphic bull frog.Swamps crouched low, reducing his height to around 5 feet tall, but he was nearly 6 feet wide and weighed 320 lbs., and his broad feet helped steady his balance despite his posture. Looking over at the screen, I realized that Swamps was classified as a Lurker. In the game of Food Chain, Lurker had relatively low offensive power, but they were adapted to survive in various environments, and the were very good at setting up traps and ambushes. Swamps had only average strength and durability, but he had high speed and under movement type he was labeled as amphibious."Our next Hunter is another male who goes by the code name of Dracula!" they introduced the next member, this time Vincent doing the honors. Instead of coming out through the curtain, however, a loud shriek came from above the stage, causing everyone to look up as a shadowy figure dropped from the ceiling and landed on the stage before rising slowly to its full height. I knew immediately that this Hunter was a bat.
Dracula's statistics classified him as being an Assassin. They specialized in tracking down hiding prey, and disposing of them in quick and efficient manners before they had time to warn others or escape. With his black colored fur, ability to fly, and super sonic hearing, he would be an incredibly dangerous Hunter, indeed! According to the charts, he stood at 6'0 tall and weighed 127 lbs, being the smallest and lightest of the hunters presented so far. But with his particular skill set, he didn't need an oversize body. His speed was top notch, maxing out the chart, and his strength level filled out half the bar, while his endurance only filled about a quarter.Looking to the stage, I realized that his arms were a very large pair of wings, not the humanoid arms and hands the rest of us had. That would restrict his ability to manipulate the environment, and would likely be the only advantage we had over him."Our fourth Hunter is a hard as nails woman who has been code named Leviathan." Vincent introduced, and onto the stage came the largest Hunter I had ever seen in all 8 seasons!
Leviathan was spliced with an octopus, and stood at a massive height of 20 feet
tall. Instead of having arms, she had a pair of 7 foot long tentacles, but her legs had been replaced 8 tentacles each measuring roughly 14 feet in length. I wouldn't have thought her capable of walking with those appendages, but her tentacles grabbed and pulled at the ground, making her lurch forward with each tug, sliding along like a giant blob of jelly.The statistics chart showed that like Avalanche, she too was classified as a Juggernaut, focusing on brute force. I estimated she would be a lot faster in the water than she was on land, and I was now very thankful I hadn't been turned into an aquatic animal. As long as I stayed on dry land, I hopefully wouldn't have to encounter her."Our final Hunter goes by the code name of Extinction." Vincent introduced, and this caught all of us by surprise when the figure stepped out. "Extinction," Vincent began, "Is a prototype for our future spin off series. We're thinking of calling it Food Chain: Battle of the Ancients!" he said proudly.
The figure that came onto stage had never been witnessed in the game before, not in all 8 seasons, out of all of the hundreds of competitors who had taken part. It was a real dinosaur, the Hunter looked to have been spliced with the DNA of a velociraptor.Extinction stood at a height of roughly 7 feet tall, and his body was streamlined, built for speed and agility. The long claws on his fingers and toes suggested lethal hand to hand combat potential. he even had the trademark oversize claws on his feet, and his scales were yellow on his underside, and purple on his backside, with a lair of orange lined around the sides.I quickly looked to the video screen and found out that Extinction was the rarest of all the Hunter classes. We called it an Apex, having a high level blend of both strength and speed, an Apex could massacre whole groups of players with ease. Which is why there had only been 2 in the show so far. They were considered too overpowered to make the game balanced, and were only used as some way to inspire the players to work for the fame of having defeated one.
In terms of speed, Extinction was at the very peak of the charts, and his strength levels filled in 75% of the bar, with his endurance measuring in at 50%. With those huge claws, powerful tail, and primal teeth, he would be a whirlwind of death and destruction if we let him hunt us down."As is customary, we will give the players 24 hours to scatter throughout the island and begin setting up their Tribes and resources. At sunrise the next day, the Hunters will be released onto the island, and begin to kill you off if you can't avoid them." Vincent explained before his sister took over the explanation."For those of you who haven't memorized the rules, they are simple. Survive until the season finale airs one year from now, or be the last survivor on the island. Then make it to the
designated safe zone which is the docks leading to the escape boat. All shelter, tools, and resources must be crafted from materials found on the island itself, you are forbidden to take any supplies with you. " she said, "Beyond that, it's anything goes. You do whatever you have to do to survive, we don't judge!"
"Looks like the introductions will have to wait" Hector said, "The game's about to start.."To Be Continued....